Virtual Sales Calls Best Practices – Connect Online with Your Customers
2020 presented salespeople with an immense challenge that disrupted the traditional face to face selling process.
Selling online should be a no-brainer. Log-in, make a presentation, answer a few questions, close the deal. Ha, how the pandemic challenged all that thinking. Customers have shrinking budgets, are more demanding and pressed for time than ever before. Replacing the luxury of face to face selling requires a major commitment on behalf of salespeople to think, adapt, and implement an online sales process in order to exceed the rapidly changing expectations of those customers. Inside – phone salespeople have been doing this for many years, but for those who were used to seeing their clients in person, the challenge requires new directional thinking.
In this regard, I thought I knew how to present online! Afterall I taught graduate school level classes online for 6 years and was doing so over 10 years ago.
How about you? Do you get that thinking while sales prospecting that your online efforts are costing you more business than helping you land more business?
Here’s a few tips to assist you in maximizing your online sales opportunities.
· Let’s start with a social media basic. What do you normally do when you get an invite for a business meeting from someone you don’t know? If you have any spec of interest, you look them up on Linkedin, and then look up their company’s website as well. What do you think your prospects are doing when you send them a slew of call to action e-mails designed to get them to accept an online demo of your product or service? Besides delete, delete, delete, if they have any spec of interest, they are checking out you and your company on Linkedin at the least. So, first and foremost, make sure your Linkedin profile is updated, is professional, fresh, and vibrant. Hopefully, your webmasters take this to heart as well. This is your FIRST IMPRESSION opportunity. Taking full advantage of the opportunity is absolutely necessary to ensure your prospects know you are a legitimate contender for their business.
· If your call to action e-mail campaign or phone calling blitz prompts a response to your product demo, take the time to do your pre-web-call homework. Rule number 1 of Pre-call Prep – don’t assume they have the tech savvy, or that their tech works to your expectations. In fact your role is to ensure they have the easiest of times using your platform of choice whether that is ZOOM, TEAMS, WEBEX, GOOGLE, or any other presentation option. Ensure they have access by sending them a verification e-mail, and while most platforms do this automatically, it doesn’t hurt to verify your prospect’s log-in ease.
· Just as in a formal business meeting, it’s ok to send your prospect a meeting agenda. If you accept a meeting invite, don’t you like to see in advance the key topics that will be discussed? Doesn’t that allow you the opportunity to prepare questions and comments? Sending a bullet point agenda or outline of what will be covered in the session shows your prospect that you respect their time and provides you an opportunity to stay on track during the session.
· If there is hard copy collateral that goes along with your presentation, make sure your prospect has the material well in advance of your online presentation. While most information should be readily available to be shared via e-mail or via your website, some customers still prefer to receive your sales collateral the old-fashioned way. It’s better to appease them than annoy them so be prepared. While not optimal, having a PowerPoint prepared as a backup may help you get through the presentation.
· Take the time in advance to test your own technology including your internet connection, screen share capability, microphone, and speaker volume. You’ve been there…” Can you hear me now, can you see my screen?” Try to avoid any unnecessary waste of time by having your tech ready to go.
· A real challenge people face when working from home is in having a private formal office space from which to work. This is true especially if you have children at home taking online classes or if your partner or spouse also works from home and they have commandeered the best spots for their own use. Do your best to ensure you have a quiet professional presentation space. It may be your kitchen, bedroom, or basement, but whatever space you use pay attention to these 4 variables:
o Sound – Make sure you are not broadcasting from a well
o Lighting – Bright enough to keep your picture quality at high resolution, but not so bright that you get washed out
o Background – How many bookshelf backgrounds have you seen lately? I suggest limiting the distraction of countless book titles in the background to a more simplistic setting if possible.
o Camera Position – Eye level, so your customers see you and not the top of your head, or what’s up your nostrils!
· Mute distracting interruptions which can impact the quality of your presentation. Turn off e-mail notifications, silence your cell phone, close any other browser windows so your focus and your customer’s focus is on your presentation.
· Sign in a few minutes early so as not to keep your customer waiting. Keep your speaker notes off camera so as not to distract from the discussion, yet if you must refer to a detailed written document, tell your customer that you are going to do so. There’s nothing wrong with adding legitimacy in the form of a formal quote or reference to help you with the sales process.
· Dress the part, literally. This is an opportunity for you to make a great impression and certainly if you are meeting the prospective customer for the first time via your online presentation. The secret to knowing what to wear for an online presentation is simply to dress to your customer’s expectations plus one. Which means don’t go overboard, just try to dress one level up from what they expect. It varies by industry so you will be familiar with this expectation almost immediately and I’m sure your employer will provide a benchmark as well.
· Offer a Backup plan early in the conversation just in case your internet or their internet goes down. Tell them what to do in case either party loses connection. Suggest a call back number if needed, a secondary log-in, or if you have to email that PowerPoint presentation you already prepared for your customer to follow along.
· In offering your screen share presentation, limit your tabs to relevant information. Stick to the subject matter at hand and deliver a customer focused presentation that provides them an opportunity to ask questions, get involved, and share the talk time. Ask them check-in questions along the way. How does this sound so far? Can you see how this product solves the issue of time restraint? Do you see how others in your industry are utilizing this product for their benefit?
· Prove to them you’ve earned the right to the online presentation and their valuable time by anticipating their questions. Make the best use of the time available by being engaging, attentive, and focused on their best interests. Even if this is the 1000th time you are making the presentation, they may be seeing it for the first time. You earn their respect when you are as enthusiastic this time as you’ve ever been. Get excited to present and let them know that you are proud of your product and how it has helped other businesses similar to theirs.
· Earn the right to ask for the order or the next meeting, or to send a contract, or to offer a proposal. Verify their interest. Suggest a next step in the process to keep the situation moving in the direction both you and your customer can agree upon. Keep the conversation fluid, but direct the result you hope to achieve.
· Most importantly, thank them for their time, and agree upon your follow up commitment. Once the presentation is completed, make sure you disengage the video and audio before doing anything else. How many times have you heard or read about professional announcers and news people being caught on a “hot-mic” thinking they were off camera. Avoid that embarrassment at all costs.
· In doing your post presentation work, send your prospective customer a brief but affirmative email that outlines your discussion and verifies the next steps in the process. Continue to make strong points which position your product as a benefit to your customer. If you’ve earned their business this is the opportune time to confirm dates, delivery, and payment terms.
I hope you find these brief bullet point best practices to your benefit. For more information visit my website at tedkaye55.wixsite.com/21lessonslearned or contact me directly via LinkedIn.
Best wishes in your virtual sales presentation endeavors.
Ted